Wine and Food

The Seven Deadly Zins, 2013, Lodi Old Vine, Zinfandel, Lodi, California, Red-wine from USA

5 points

Art and design are certainly a question of taste. Once you’ve seen the label of this wine, you’ll definitely be able to find it again. Personally, I find it really ugly. From a marketing point of view, it’s quite successful — since you can be sure that everyone will recognize it the second time around. This should also apply to the name of the wine also, shouldn’t it? Isn’t it funny? No! It is not! You can read the back label about the wine and its motto. Perhaps it’s only to sell more bottles, or whatever they think encourages people to drink. In any case, the only comment I can make is this: even in America (or: particularly in America) the Catholic Church and good wine seem to have a close connection.

Have a look at some of my previous reviews touching on this subject: (Chateau Pape Clement, 1986, Kanzemer Altenberg, Riesling Spätlese 2012, Bischöfliche Weingüter TrierKanzemer Altenberg, Riesling Spätlese 2012, Bischöfliche Weingüter Trier and further more). This said, I don’t think any wine from Italy or Germany would ever be named in this way. Austrian wine – possibly!

All this isn’t terribly important. I do like this wine. I didn’t know it beforehand, but I bought the wine because I wanted a Zinfandel. Zinfandel isn’t something a lot of gourmets and / or wine specialists usually don’t like too much. Selecting wine by type depends either on matching with food or with mood. In general, I wouldn’t consider Zinfandel an elegant or complex grape; it’s quite sweet and robust. At certain times it can be very delicious. The Seven Deadly Zins tastes simple – and is simple – but pretty good: sweet plum, black cherry, dried apricot and fig. Tobacco, leather, oaky pepper – eucalyptus and woody-resin. A heavy and somehow almost a sweet wine. Therefore, I prefer drinking this wine quite cold. Room temperature would make the wine really sweet – almost like liqueur – and, in my opinion, undrinkable.

Like the majority of red wines from the USA, this wine comes from California – but not from one of the famous valleys like Napa or Alexander. Lodi lays to the east of San Francisco and is an agricultural area, rather than a wine region. “Michael David Winery” reflects the names of the two Phillips brothers, who have been winemakers in Lodi since … well, look at their webpage – I am not exactly sure: http://www.michaeldavidwinery.com/Story.

Phillip’s Zinfandel tastes like something that most of us would consider typically and quintessentially American. Not too bad! But certainly too expensive for what it is!